This book examines the central decades of Peter Eisenman’s work through a formal and thematic analysis of key architectural projects and writings, revealing underlying characteristics and arguing for their productive continuity and transformative role. The book explores Eisenman’s approach to architectural form generation and thinking. It does this through a thematic and formal analysis of projects and writings from the mid-1970s to the mid-1990s. Following an introductory chapter addressing the theme of potentialities, the book is organised in two parts. The first part focuses on key period writings of Eisenman, framing the close reading around a practice of resistance, the architect’s approach to history as analysis, and the transformative conceptualisation of time. In the second part, the book undertakes an analysis of select projects from the 1980s and 1990s. Three formal preoccupations and conceptual orientations – ground manipulations, figuration, and spatial events – organise this part of the book. Previously unpublished material from the Peter Eisenman fonds, Canadian Centre for Architecture, Montréal, provides primary source material. A concluding chapter addresses Eisenman’s teaching, its relation to his larger project, and possible legacies for educators, practitioners, scholars, and theorists.

Peter Eisenman is one of the most controversial protagonists of the architectural scene, who is known as much for his theoretical essays as he is for his architecture. While much has been written about his built works and his philosophies, most books focus on one or the other aspect. By structuring this volume around the concept of form, Stefano Corbo links together Eisenman’s architecture with his theory. From Formalism to Weak Form: The Architecture and Philosophy of Peter Eisenman argues that form is the sphere of mediation between our body, our inner world and the exterior world and, as such, it enables connections to be made between philosophy and architecture. From the start of his career on, Eisenman has been deeply interested in the problem of form in architecture and has constantly challenged the classical concept of it. For him, form is not simply a cognitive tool that determines a physical structure, which discriminates all that is active from what is passive, what is inside from what is outside. He has always tried to connect his own work with the cultural manifestations of the time: firstly under the influence of Colin Rowe and his formalist studies; secondly, by re-interpreting Chomsky’s linguistic theories; in the 80’s, by collaborating with Derrida and his de-constructivist approach; more recently,by discovering Henri Bergson's idea of Time. These different moments underline different phases, different projects, different programmatic manifestos; and above all, an evolving notion of form. Taking a multi-disciplinary approach based on the intersections between architecture and philosophy, this book investigates all these definitions and, in doing so, provides new insights into and a deeper understanding of the complexity of Eisenman’s work.

A provocative case for historical ambiguity in architecture by one of the field's leading theorists Conceptions of modernity in architecture are often expressed in the idea of the zeitgeist, or "spirit of the age," an attitude toward architectural form that is embedded in a belief in progressive time. Lateness explores how architecture can work against these linear currents in startling and compelling ways. In this incisive book, internationally renowned architect Peter Eisenman, with Elisa Iturbe, proposes a different perspective on form and time in architecture, one that circumvents the temporal constraints on style that require it to be "of the times"—lateness. He focuses on three twentieth-century architects who exhibited the qualities of lateness in their designs: Adolf Loos, Aldo Rossi, and John Hejduk. Drawing on the critical theory of Theodor Adorno and his study of Beethoven's final works, Eisenman shows how the architecture of these canonical figures was temporally out of sync with conventions and expectations, and how lateness can serve as a form of release from the restraints of the moment. Bringing together architecture, music, and philosophy, and drawing on illuminating examples from the Renaissance and Baroque periods, Lateness demonstrates how today's architecture can use the concept of lateness to break free of stylistic limitations, expand architecture's critical capacity, and provide a new mode of analysis.

Impregnated with "culture" in the broadest sense, the works of Peter Eisenman reflect many years of important study on the meaning and sense of design. Architecture understood as History, as Philosophy, as Art, as Mathematics, as Literature, Architecture understood - as it should be that is - as a strict discipline that aims to recover its operational fields, defining with precision its limits and the potential for a profession that must constantly face destabilising visual and technological systems. Within history and yet outside it so that it can continue, within Tradition yet outside of tradition in order to avoid becoming sterile, the architecture of Peter Eisenman does not aim to console with the simple suggestion of a difficult-to-define aesthetic or the illusion of an evanescent technique. The unpredictability of his work anchors design to individuation and the clarification of its objectives by focussing on the value of the sign understood as a fundamental conceptual expression and not as simple formal distortion. The validity of this formidable theoretical system intended to return a renewed and personal linguistic system to fields of architecture, is confirmed by examining the continued expansion of the territorial system, as evidenced by projects on a territorial scale such as the Memorial of Berlin or the Cultural Centre of Galizia, the most recent projects which demonstrate the vitality of a design system that is constantly renewing itself.

Essais sur l'architecture par l'architecte Eisenman.

Peter Eisenman is one of the most controversial protagonists of the architectural scene, who is known as much for his theoretical essays as he is for his architecture. While much has been written about his built works and his philosophies, most books focus on one or the other aspect. By structuring this volume around the concept of form, Stefano Corbo links together Eisenman’s architecture with his theory. From Formalism to Weak Form: The Architecture and Philosophy of Peter Eisenman argues that form is the sphere of mediation between our body, our inner world and the exterior world and, as such, it enables connections to be made between philosophy and architecture. From the start of his career on, Eisenman has been deeply interested in the problem of form in architecture and has constantly challenged the classical concept of it. For him, form is not simply a cognitive tool that determines a physical structure, which discriminates all that is active from what is passive, what is inside from what is outside. He has always tried to connect his own work with the cultural manifestations of the time: firstly under the influence of Colin Rowe and his formalist studies; secondly, by re-interpreting Chomsky’s linguistic theories; in the 80’s, by collaborating with Derrida and his de-constructivist approach; more recently,by discovering Henri Bergson's idea of Time. These different moments underline different phases, different projects, different programmatic manifestos; and above all, an evolving notion of form. Taking a multi-disciplinary approach based on the intersections between architecture and philosophy, this book investigates all these definitions and, in doing so, provides new insights into and a deeper understanding of the complexity of Eisenman’s work.

A monograph of legendary and cult architect, Peter Eisenman that sums up and illustrates his lifetime's achievement, from his first work, 'House I' (1960). It is centred on sixty-three of Eisenman's significant projects, interspersed by essays from international architects and critics.

How should an innovative architect react today to the electronic revolution which is taking place? This work explores the answer by looking at the work of New York architect, Peter Eisenman. It includes a selection of excepts from Eisenman's writings and an analysis of some of his projects.